1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an imaging device, an imaging method and a computer readable medium stored with an imaging program.
2. Related Art
In the fields of biochemistry there are proposals for imaging devices for imaging a fluorescent sample marked with a fluorescent dye as an imaging subject by illuminating with excitation light to cause fluorescent light to be emitted, as well for imaging as an imaging subject of a chemiluminescent sample that has been placed in contact with a chemiluminescent substrate using a long exposure time without excitation light illumination.
For example, a device is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3678397 that stores a look-up table of types of imaging techniques corresponded against exposure times (preliminary exposure times) for preliminary imaging in order to derive an appropriate exposure time for a main exposure. A preliminary exposure time is derived according to an input type of imaging technique by referring to the look-up table, and then the main exposure time is set based on the preliminary image signal arising during preliminary imaging using the derived preliminary exposure time.
A device is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2000-111478 in which a scheduled exposure completion time and one or more exposure check times during exposure are set in advance. The optimal exposure time for a chemiluminescent exposure and imaging can then be efficiently searched for by storing images captured at each exposure check time in an image storage section and displaying the captured images on a monitor section.
A device is disclosed in JP-A No. 2005-214924 in which cells for observation are disposed on a carrier, and images of fluorescence emitted from the cells due to illumination with excitation light are acquired by an imaging system in a time series at specific intervals. In order to prevent fluorescent intensity saturation a fluorescent image obtained the preceding time is employed to determine the exposure amount for imaging the next fluorescent image to be obtained.
In the technology of Japanese Patent No. 3678397 the main exposure time is set using a preset look-up table. Therefore for an imaging subject of a chemiluminescent sample issues can occur of the main exposure time not being set appropriately and poor density arising when the chemiluminescent sample has degraded or when a chemiluminescent sample not compatible with the look-up table is employed.